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My arms wrapped around his neck, my fingers gliding over every ridge of the scar that stretched around his skin as our tongues tangled together. He walked us into the bedchamber without ever letting his lips leave mine.

The heavens exploded behind my eyes as he twisted my braided hair into his fist and pulled my head back. His lips traveled down the expense of my throat as he lowered me to the bed. His body pressed against me as his mouth trailed back up to mine and his teeth caught my bottom lip between them. A moan rolled from my lungs as his hand locked around my jaw and his lips fully collided back onto mine in a kiss that trapped every ounce of our combined need between us.

It was greedy, demanding—fucking breathtaking.

His fingers slipped from my jaw and loosed around my hair, trailing down to my hips, digging into my skin as he pushed onto his knees and let his head fall between my breasts, taking deep, strained breaths. My fingers slipped back into his hair, cradling his head as my chest rose and fell in sync with his own breathing.

I knew this couldn’t go further when I asked him to kiss me, knew I wasn’t in a place to give him the kind of love he deserved. I could not lose him as my friend, not now. But I had to taste him.

Had to know how it felt to be kissed by him.

“Ataliia,” he whispered, pulling his head from my chest and letting his eyes fall to mine. They swirled back at me with such a bottomless depth of longing as his hand slid up the side of my neck.

“I know.” I nodded, lifting my hands to cup his face in my palm, my thumbs grazing over the scars across his cheeks. “I know.”

He lowered his head, his lips lightly tracing mine, leaving me with one last breath of him before he slid off of me and onto his back. I pulled the blanket over my naked body as I rolled onto my side to look at him.

He stared silently up at the ceiling, one hand tucked behind his head as the other rested across his abdomen, his thumb twirling the rings along his fingers. I reached my hand out to him, pushing my fingers through his as his head fell to the side and his gaze locked on mine.

“Will you stay with me?” I asked across the quiet distance between us. His chin dipped in silent answer as he pushed himself under the blanket and dragged my body into his chest.

I didn’t care that I was wholly naked.

Didn’t care that his hands were on this skin,my skin.

I just wanted to be near him.

To feel him close.

His lips lowered into my hair, and as he took in the scent of me I thought maybe, one day—I might let myself love again.

Chapter thirty-seven

HYACINTH

Thedayshadpassedquickly as we all prepared to leave for Ithia. I’d spent the last two vigorously training with Nithra and it paid off. I’d finally learned to shift into dragon sight without it being provoked by fear. Ata had officially relocated to her home where Yenne had been coming to teach her, and from the sounds of it, she was learning quickly.

“Have you and Wren ever thought about it? I asked Pri as Ata pushed through the door, dropping an armful of pillows and blankets on the ground and mumbling something under her breath about how she couldn’t believe we had convinced her to come back into this room.

It was the only room in the castle safe from Cain, nothing but stone walls and a fireplace.

Pri smiled to herself as she set a platter of baked goods on the wooden desk in the corner. “I do not think he is the marriage type.”

I glanced at Ata, brows raised as she scoffed.

“We are talking about the same Wren right? The one who has absolutely been planning a wedding in his head since he slid out of his mother’s womb?”

“Yes, Ata.” Pri laughed. “He is a romantic through and through, but he is also very practical, and with the jobs that we have, I think it scares him. It scaresmeafter what happened to Liam.”

I nodded, swiping the plate of pastries and ale from the desk and setting them on the blankets as I lowered myself to the ground. I conjured three glasses, pouring into them as Pri continued.

“This job has given me Wren, has given me this little family of ours.” She smiled as I extended the glass to her and pulled it from my fingers. “But it has also taken everything from me. It has already taken one family and I live in constant fear that it will take another.”

I understood that fear, it was the same one that plagued every one of my nights. Death did not care about the kindness or love in our hearts, it did not care if you held good or evil there.

“Enough of that,” Pri said, pushing the sadness from her eyes as she smiled at us. “We leave for Ithia in the morning and this is the last night we will have alone for the foreseeable future. I intend to spend it drunk with my sisters.”

“I can make that happen,” Ata said as she refilled her glass and held it out between us. The room filled with sound as we clinked our cups together, drinking to each other, to these friendships.